I kept falling asleep last night and never posted this. I woke up 3 times until 5am reviving my laptop, but never made it.
Dinner at Buki`s (http://www.bukiskitchen.co.uk/index.html). Ah, the blessings of good food. We had a delicious lentils curry with bread and heart shaped cookies with a glazed cherry on the top over fulfilling conversation, enormous amount of laughs and sharing songs, stories. Debbie sang Dolly Parton`s Little Sparrow on her husky voice and we were all amazed by her performance. She was born to sing, one would think listening to her performance. She lived the song and set very comfortably in the emotions portrayed. I can`t wait for her next gig. I red parts of Day 55 from the blog, the second day I returned to London, the uncertainty , the questions, the stress, the anxiety and asking God where he was in that situation. We all sat in silence after that for a while. Buki read from the Shek and she talked about how God feels our sorrows and pain. Mary shared a story about her experience of provision while in a silent retreat. The evening was a peacefully slow island of sharing stories in the big city-life rush of London. We need to do more of this.
I met my course leader earlier on the day. We still haven’t set what I need to hand in, but I was asked to do more visual work. She encouraged me to go back to the original felted bag idea, the very first Vodores bag. In doubts now: going through a long illness, I am quite aware of my own limitation when it comes to deadlines and drive to meet them. I only have 6 weeks left, 2 days only each I can dedicate to MA and starting experimental work now I fear a bit too late. I rather do things in a pace where my body, mind and soul are in a healthy balance of the input I have to perform to produce an outcome. This is just a fact I am still learning to live with. The superficiality of crazy long hours, lack of sleep and eating in order to produce more and more, better and better results has gone out the window and the reality of taking each day at a time graciously hit home. And I feel incredibly blessed to welcome this on-going change in my life. There is nothing, no deadline, no learning outcome, no peer pressure that worth getting ill over it. Life is not meant to be a rat race. As long as we have a roof over our head, food in our stomach and clothes to keep us warm we have the richest of the rich. Anything else above that is what we choose to chase in the rat race.
I am most likely to go and see my MA course mates` presentations on Monday. I need to make sure, though I won`t start to panic when I see the progress of their work. I have to remind myself I only have a budget of £20 for this dissertation and I can only hope my printer will come out of its broken mode and print the thesis out for me. I need to make sure I take the positive and encouraging elements from the others` work and won`t feel condemned by the lack of progress I might assume to achieved comparing to them. I know my journey, I have a full circle experience of it. I have lived with it in these past 6 years. I simply don’t know how it feels to study only and not having to work. I don’t know how it feels to be able to have a quality life whilst at university. I always had to work very hard and I need to remind myself on Monday, that I came a very long way on that journey and that journey is not an inch less from somebody else`s journey, who had the wonderful opportunity to only concentrate on his/her studies, because of funding for it or just simply had the finances to make really innovative or glamorous products.
Case Study III. Bureaucratic burden:
During the communism hand – made products were considered to be cheaper than mass produced ones. This is still a popular error in Hungary. Whilst in England hand crafted goods have a more realistic price range, in Hungary even those who according to the survey would pay a realistic price because it is a one off piece still could not pay more than for the goods bought in English second hand shops or Chinese Clothes Shops. This theme comes through from C’s case study.
C. is in her mid 30’s, living in small town D. She is currently on maternity leave with 24.000Ft benefit per month from the government. She desperately tries to make ends meet. In the hope of opening an English second hand clothes shop she started a course in shop management. English second hand clothes shops are always successful businesses with relatively good income. Only the customs and the shop’s utility bills need to be paid the rest is profit (Kiss to Fodor, 2009). Without the shop manager qualification she is not able to obtain the necessary documents to open a shop. Whilst she has been waiting for the papers to come through two other English second hand shops have been opened in her town, which put her out of business even before she started. As C has not much income, she was unable to speed up the process by paying bribe in the right offices. This is an unfortunate heritage of communism and the underpaid bureaucratic system in Hungary (Entrepreneur Source to Fodor 2009). C’s dream however is to become a jewellery maker. She already sells beaded bracelets and necklaces in the shop where she helps out. The most she is able to sell a bracelet for is 250Ft (around 70p) per piece which includes the material cost of 170Ft. C said she has stopped waiting for higher wages, when people could afford to buy and pay higher prices for her jewellery. She just tries to make the most out of what she can. The bureaucratic burden of shop opening was a big disappointment to her whole family. Whilst for tailors the appearance of English second hand clothes shops means loss of clients, for individual families like C’s it could have been their way of making ends meet.
The unused skills are a direct effect of oppression resulting in distrust with people, learning not to have faith in their own and others skills. The lack of interest in innovation and still waiting for the state to solve peoples’ individual problems is a direct result of living in a post centralised country. To change peoples’ general view this matter could take up to 70 years. However innovation could be a way out as a long – term motivation but it needs to be supported by policy making to reduce unemployment (Szerb to Fodor 2009).
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